AIZ-Magazine and the Photomontage of John Heartfield: the Aesthetics of a Political Statement

“USE PHOTOGRAPH AS A WEAPON!”

That was the slogan over the entrance of John Heartfield's room at Film und Foto exhibition that opened in Stuttgart in 1929. The room was occupied by Heartfield’s work demonstrated by his aim of using Photomontage as a tool of political protest. In 1939 Heartfield began to publish his Photomontage work in AIZ-Magazine which was based in Berlin. The name “AIZ” was formed by taking the first initial of each word (Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung) which-in English-stands for (Workers Illustrated Paper), indicating that AIZ magazine was intended to be a Pictorial/Illustrated magazine.

John Heartfield’s work corresponded with the great depression in the capitalist countries.

Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) was born in berlin in 1891. After the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, Helmut was called up in 1914 where he served as a guard in Berlin for most of year 1915, by the end of 1915 he was discharged on the account of ill health. As a protest against the war and German anglophobia, Helmut Herzfeld changed his name and became John Heartfield.